Saint Margaret

Abstract

According to Ricardo Naldi and the Ministry of Culture of Campania, this life-size, wooden statue of Saint Margaret is attributed to the sculptor Giovanni da Nola. Giovanni was a prominent Neapolitan sculptor who made several religious sculptures in Campania. The figure holds a cross and a book and wears a golden crown, attributes associated with the saint. She is clothed in a lavish mantle and wears a burgundy dress with gold brocade designs. According to Saint Margaret’s hagiography, she burst out of the belly of a dragon. In this representation, she is shown standing above the dragon; the beast’s tail coils upwards on the right side of the figure. The dragon’s head is missing and was broken off. Margaret stands above the beast with her feet spread apart. She gazes outward to the viewer and maintains a taut pose. In this representation, Saint Margaret is shown in a masculine way, almost like St. George defeating the dragon or St. Michael defeating the devil, to make her look heroic. According to Renaissance standards, men were depicted with their feet apart to show their manliness; their feet apart symbolized how much space they were allowed to occupy. On the other hand, women were not allowed to have the same body language as men. Women kept their legs together and avoided direct eye contact with men. Letizia Gaeta observes that the statue of Saint Margaret shares notable stylistic similarities with Giovanni’s Joseph of Arimathea from the Lamentation group at Teggiano, Campania, particularly in the treatment of the mouth, the handling of the drapery, and the facial expression. The sculpture is enshrined in the Church of Santa Maria dei Longobardi in Novi Velia in Campania. Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.